Thursday, May 10, 2007

208 Commission

This is important enough to post even if I cause just one more person to act on it. (And consider doing this even if you are not from Colorado.)

Between now and Saturday, May 12, 2007, is the only real opportunity to voice your concerns to the 208 Commission through the public comment. After May 12, there is no opportunity for public comment before they select the 3 to 5 proposals, which they will do at public hearings on May 17 and May 18. [You can also email the Commission by May 12 as explained in the post. --ed] These 3 to 5 proposals will be the ones submitted to the state legislature next January for its consideration. This means that you and your voice could be heard by the legislature through the commission.

In other words, if you want to stop socialized medicine in Colorado, you have been allotted only until May 12 to do so by stating your opinion. The post lists the proposals under consideration by the Commission, which will narrow the field to as few as three of them. You might want to do what you can to make sure that Brian Schwartz's proposal stays on the table, and the post offers some guidelines on how to make a case for it.

Be sure to read the post carefully before you send off an email. (HT: Diana Hsieh)

Roark Speech at The Belmont Club

Wretchard uses Howard Roark's speech to lead in to an interesting Mark Steyn piece questioning environmentalism, as well as some further thoughts of his own. He concludes:

[I]f we do not care for ourselves, we cannot pretend to care for our values, nor the larger community that preserves these values. If the value of an individual is zero, then the summation of a succession of zeros is zero. If you believe that it is nonzero then amazingly enough the true value of environmentalism -- real environmentalism -- is not to serve Gaia but to serve man. I'd better stop here. Too many heresies already.

The only thing pleasant about this story is that it's funny to see Al Sharpton squirm after a dose of his own medicine.

On Monday, Sharpton said in a debate that "those of us who believe in God" will defeat Romney for the White House. He denied he was questioning the Mormon's own belief in God.

Rather, the New York Democrat said he was contrasting himself with Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author he was debating at the time.

"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," Sharpton said during a debate with Hitchens at the New York Public Library.

Romney's campaign seized on the comments to criticize Sharpton, and the candidate complained about the remarks on Wednesday, calling them "terribly misguided."

Asked if he considered the civil rights leader a bigot, Romney demurred.

"I don't know Reverend Sharpton," he said. "I doubt he is personally such a thing, but the comment was a comment which could be described as a bigoted comment."

Romney added that he was willing to believe Sharpton didn't mean to be offensive.

"Perhaps he didn't mean it that way, but the way it came out was inappropriate and wrong," said Romney.

In a statement, Sharpton accused the Romney campaign of a "blatant effort to fabricate a controversy to help their lagging campaign" and argued that it was Hitchens who criticized Mormons.

"In no way did I attack Mormons or the Mormon Church when I responded that other believers, not atheists, would vote against Mr. Romney for purely political reasons," Sharpton said.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sharpton denied questioning Romney's belief in God and suggested the Romney camp was trying to stir up a controversy because of their political differences.

"What I said was that we would defeat him, meaning as a Republican," Sharpton said. "A Mormon, by definition, believes in God. They don't believe in God the way I do, but by definition, they believe in God."

Sadly, this entertainment comes at the potential, very steep expense of a Presidential race between two theocratic candidates, of whom Romney could be the less religious if he wins the GOP nomination and Obama takes the Democratic!

9 comments:

Sid
said...

What were even more interesting were the comments on that blog post at "The Belmont Club".

I haven't watched the speech (56k connection right now), but I have read the book, and Roark states in quite unequivocal terms that he was willing to collaborate with the other people involved in the construction -- however, he would like the architecture left to himself and not diluted by the meddling of pressure groups. And then you have a comment like this:

That Fountainhead is pure fantasy. Unless she’s building a tool shed in her back garden, an architect must coordinate with her own team, MEP engineers, structural engineers, cost consultants, [blah blah blah] and satisfy the client who actually pays for the construction (and hopefully the architect's fees). Once you jump over all those hurdles it’s time to start dealing with the contractors and construction workers who actually build the building. (bold mine)

Although Roark IMO was too idealistic for the real world (I see that Rand meant him to be that way), this misrepresentation is ridiculous.

Deliberate package-dealing, such as this, of such valid applications of egoism as division of labor with altruism in order to make it seem rational are among the most exasperating types of deception out there.

I hadn't even looked at the comments there this morning as I had an unexpected distraction during my normal blogging time, so thanks for pointing this out. It sounds like there might be a regular rogues' gallery of confusions (honest and otherwise) over there.

On the off-chance that someone from over there follows a back-link, I'll state this now: EGOISM DOES NOT REQUIRE LIVING AS A HERMIT AND TEAMWORK DOES NOT IMPLY ALTRUISM.

I'll check over there in a few hours. I have noticed even here that backlinks sometimes take as much as a day to "form" on their own. (I am assuming that the "trouble" you note is that other links to BC that you now about aren't showing up there. Won't have time to verify at least for awhile....)

Gus, thanks for highlighting the Colorado experiment, which I apparently missed and will monitor with the anticipation of a financial train wreck. (Good thing federal grant transparency is starting next year, or the magnitutude of the Colorado disaster would be hidden with the usual redistribution ploys).

My respect for states' rights brooks no interference in duly legislated follies in other states. In fact, I get disturbed when outsiders try to out-influence us voters, here.

States' "Rights" do not supercede individual rights. If you want to stand by and allow momentum to build for national socialized medicine, that's your decision and potentially your life-threatening problem. However, as you should know, the purpose of government is to protect the rights of its citizens, not to enslave some and sicken others.

Because what happens in Colorado can have consequences for you personally, perhaps it will help for you to think of its citizens as already getting ready to interfere with things in your state and do something about it, if you are concerned.

Standing back and smirking while a catastrophe occurs and claiming the moral high ground on the basis of States' Rights of all things is about as brave and noble as hiding behind the skirt of a prostitute (and States' Rights is as close to one as a political concept can get). I would hope you are a better man than that.

Ouch! I may smirk, if only to try an expression lawyers actually practice.

You say, "States' "Rights" do not supercede individual rights". No issue is taken there.

However, (please read on) variations in rights accorded to individuals among the states assures evolving individual responsibilities and freedoms are more fully expressed, and that competition will exist for best practices in key human endeavors.

Our right as individuals to choose our domicile states, to elect or serve as representatives of state and local governments, and to pursue or to perpetuate the greater (or lesser) freedoms guaranteed under respective state constitutions certainly seem superior positions worth preserving, in my state and in my opinion.

Not one to "stand back", I have stood for and served several terms in positions of local leadership, and have helped influence outcomes in several elections.

That adult voters in Colorado prefer a path to socialized medicine slighlty amazes, but proponents of socialism are as ubiquitous as infections.

When occasionally our native socialists prevail, be glad we are compartmentalized into our various states and may follow their odd experiments for purposes of fact gathering rather than anarchistic propaganda. I alreay know you are also a better man than that.

"However, (please read on) variations in rights accorded to individuals among the states assures evolving individual responsibilities and freedoms are more fully expressed, and that competition will exist for best practices in key human endeavors."

Individual rights, as I have outlined elsewhere, are not "accorded" to anyone. They are inherent in man's nature. All a government can do is protect them adequately or fail to do so, including actually violating them, which is what socialized medicine will do in Colorado. In this respect, I find a flaw in your position, which is actually not an uncommon one. But the prevalence of a view does not make it correct. Just look at Colorado.

You are correct that permitted variations in laws among the states can at least localize tyranny. This is true, but it is an accident because the Federal government is superior to those of the states.

The federal government should step in to rule any state plan for socialized medicine illegal on the grounds that it constitutes slavery. Slavery is, after all, illegal according to the Constitution, which no state may violate. This organization is a reflection of the principle that individual rights supercede states rights as it permits the feds to stop states from imposing their own tyrannies.

Having said that, "states' rights" has been poorly understood and applied throughout our nation's history. And the concept "individual rights" has been nearly forgotten. Again, just think of Colorado. And the feds.

In today's sad state of awareness among the public of the nature of rights and the purpose of government, the feds will not prevent Colorado from reinstituting slavery. Indeed the danger is that after enough states do so, the feds will install it top-down on the states in the form of national socialized medicine.

This is why I think it is foolhardy (and why I slammed you) to say anything about "states' rights" in this context: Because that concept is serving as a cover for a move to slip the yoke around all of us.

We can't all act every time and, to clarify, I do not regard it as a moral shortcoming for a non-Coloradan not to email this commission. But I do think it is wrong to claim that it is OK for Colorado to enslave its physicians due to "states' rights". This is how I read your earlier comment and why was not terribly pleased when I did.